The present invention relates generally to riding toys for children and pertains, more specifically, to tricycles and component parts for tricycles and other riding toys.
Over the years, riding toys have been made available to children in a very wide variety of wheeled vehicles. In particular, tricycles have enjoyed great popularity and have been manufactured in a number of different configurations, utilizing various materials. More recently, tricycles constructed of molded synthetic polymeric materials have found favor in the marketplace in that these riding toys offer aesthetically attractive designs with economy of cost. Heretofore, the major component parts of most tricycles and similar riding toys constructed of synthetic polymeric materials have been made by blow molding techniques, utilizing synthetic polymeric materials best suited to blow molding. While blow molding offers certain advantages in design and economy, there are drawbacks, especially in the limited choice of materials available for blow molding and in the manufacturing process itself where there is considerable lag time between the placement of orders by customers and the completion of the ordered products for delivery. Such lag time leads to the requirement for maintaining more inventory of finished products on hand, with concomitant increased expense.